I’m back on a NG+ run of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I had to take a break from the misery of Blasphemous. I might play both in parallel this week. I already missed out on the “true ending” of Blasphemous by not doing the DLC early apparently so now I need to decide if I can bother going for the “good ending” or just try to rush through the final area so I can get some credit rolling action and uninstall the game for good.
Mandragora has been fun though! NG+ could maybe use a balance pass perhaps, but it’s hard to tell with the amount of build variety. So far NG+ has felt more like a victory lap than a challenge, but I did go for a fairly greedy multiclass build so it really only came together towards the end of NG. And even then, the gameplay is fun enough and traversing these beautiful locations is fun enough that I don’t mind. And there is a certain ARPG style satisfaction in seeing your character grow in power and your build come to fruition. Easy free dopamine.
I mean, they have no problems offering transaction services to obvious scams like “find sex in your region” and other scammy find relationship websites.
This will never go away. Payment processors make life easy for most consumers, people like them. And as long as we have them, they hold all the power around how money can be used. And they will always be limited by governments and local laws.
If you don’t like the situation, use cash. If that’s too inconvenient Bitcoin is essentially your only other option.
What I say is that basically any alternative crypto coin is way more efficient than bitcoin and thus it would be dumb to go for bitcoin compared to the trillion other crypto coins.
Not even… They have the power because you gave it to them. States can take it away, but that’s worse, you don’t want that.
But it doesn’t really matter, it’s all connected. The payment processors control how money can be used and the state controls how they’re allowed to let you use it. And you let it all happen by voluntarily using a credit card.
Since this is caused by activist pressure on the payment processors, perhaps a grassroots activist campaign of our own could change their mind. Especially if we threaten to stop using their services in favor of any competitor that allows all legal purchases.
Hopefully you’re referring to Visa/Paypal, not Itch.
One place that comes to mind is Verotel. I barely know them, but supposedly one of their star attributes is their use for adult businesses. Likely someone else knows them better.
visa have similar restrictions… the issue is that payment processor, merchant, card network, issuing bank, and acquiring bank (and a few more) are all different layers to facilitating a transaction… there are very few card networks in the world, and essentially people pay online using mostly either just visa or mastercard
technically you could probably run a site that only accepts amex, diners club, jcb, discover, etc but it really wouldn’t go well: people want to whip out their card (often their only method of online payment) and just pay and go
you’d also need to find a payment processor that would be comfortable taking on the risk of facilitating transactions around mastercard and visa… they might just cut them off from access to their network. sounds like extortion? yeah welcome to the world of banking, where in any other industry it’d be called a cartel
making things even more difficult is that by law in the US payment processors must offer at least 3 (i think? it might be 2?) “routes” (these things aren’t always straight forward - sometimes there are multiple card networks involved), so you probably have to have a pretty mature payment processor because they’d have to accept several of the alternative card networks
oh and you have to push various stats to the federal reserve which is a massive back and forth bureaucratic challenge even above the technical challenge of interfacing with some pretty awful systems. it often takes over a year to get things sorted unless you’re a “too big to fail” type customer
there are a buuuuunch of other spanners that get thrown into the works, but i’m not sure where the NDA line hits so i’m gonna just leave it there and say trust me, payment processing (distinct from payment gateway) is an absolute nightmare mess
I’m not sure that works, like on a purely game theory level. If gamers start to apply pressure, threaten to stop buying games, the stores need to make a choice:
A. Risk facing the wrath of the gamers, sales are likely to drop. Possibly by a lot, perhaps 15-20%. That could keep up for months before stabilizing.
B. Risk facing the wrath of the payment processors, credit card sales will stop immediately, only alternative payment types get through. Sales drop by 80% overnight, over time some users will seek alternative payment methods, possibly resulting in only 50% less revenue than expected…
While both of those options are bad, one of them is totally fatal to their business.
Those numbers are of course only speculation, but that’s my best guess.
I find it offensive that the only effective way to combat this is to fight fire with fire and also make a big bitchy noise about this like the conservatives love to do. I have better things I would rather be doing with my life. But such are the times we live in I suppose.
In the short term, I think that collectively being Karens about it would be able to reverse the pressure, by steering the monopolists away from oppressing us. Because they are mainly motivated by money.
It absolutely is. We only encourage gun and violence culture in real life, especially by authoritarian figures and their representatives. Allowing such in virtual spaces where no one can actually be hurt or killed runs counter to our patriotic ideals.
It’s already expanded. It started as going after “rape and incest” but now it’s all adult games. But a bunch of lgbtq games have already gotten hit. I am beyond furious.
i don’t know if any source has caught up yet, but a few days ago it was indeed just taboo kink games that were being targeted, now it seems all of itch.ios NSFW games are disappearing
I think all games being hit is a temporary measure while they get some sort of new process in place. We’ll see where things land.
Either way, card processing companies shouldn’t be dictating what kind of art consumers can consume, even if I don’t personally agree with the content of some of the worst offenders. If it’s not outright illegal, they can fuck off.
Direct link to the game because the creator restricted who can view their posts on Bsky. Only viewable via a link or from their profile now, searching the name only returns a bunch of other dress-up games, but not this one, presumably because of the „Transgender“ tag.
It’s gonna stop once they hit a category that includes big AAA games. Once they start cutting into the revenue of Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed the big developers should take a stance.
Capitalism is a global problem, its not contained to america. Replace neighbors being kidnapped with which ever country you’re in supporting a genocide and it still fits, and is likely accurate unless you’re like in Yemen.
It’s slow. Interminably slow. You think you might be prepared for how slow it is, you are not.
Google “Red Dead Redemption 2 slow” if you doubt this.
Second, the controls absolutely suck. Not sure who decided the same button should be either “talk to NPC” or “shoot NPC right in the goddamned head” but that never should have passed play testing.
Again, Google “Red Dead Redemption 2 controls” if you doubt this.
I LOVED RDR1. Played the hell out of that game, was really looking forward to 2.
Then I had to walk through snow for an hour before anything happened.
Got through that godawful opening sequence, got to a bit where we’re going across a prairie, hear a call for help, ride over to talk to an NPC to see what’s going on and shoot them right in the goddamned head instead, prompting a fugitive run.
That’s when I realized I could re-start the game and try again, or just say “fuck it” and cut my losses. I cut my losses. I’m not going to fight bad game design AND the plot.
This feels a little bit like eating the peel off of a potato, and stating the entire potato is gross. Maybe you just don’t like the peel. If we judged games purely by their tutorials, Kingdom Hearts 2 was a giant bomb, Fallout 3 was an awful game. Skyrim was wildly unpopular, Metal Gear Solid V wasn’t worth playing at all, The Witcher 3 is a slog, etc…
Yes, the intro is slow. Nobody denies that. Even people who love the game will tell you “just trudge through the first hour until you get to Valentine. The game opens up after that.” You can even find those exact comments on the posts you said to google.
Not sure who decided the same button should be either “talk to NPC” or “shoot NPC right in the goddamned head” but that never should have passed play testing
The controls are actually pretty solid, once you realize exactly how many things they managed to map to a ~16 button controller. Sure, the controls can change depending on what you’re doing. For example, if you’re on a horse, you have different controls than if you’re on foot. But I’m not sure how you managed to shoot someone while trying to talk to them… Because those are, in fact, always two entirely separate buttons. The right trigger/LMB is basically only ever used for shooting. Out of every button you could have picked, you picked the one that is basically hard-mapped to a single action.
The only time the trigger/LMB is used for anything else is when you’re in a menu. But that’s certainly not unique to Red Dead; Games use triggers to change menu tabs all the time.
I know its silly of me to care about down votes. This is the internet after all, and having thin skin on the internet is just crazy.
But the idea that you’re downvoting me for sharing news just strikes me as…insane. Do you not want me to share news on Lemmy? Do you think I’m the developer? If so did you not read this intro to the piece at all?
Again. Just stupid to care about being down voted, but if you’re one of those who have been, I’d love you to just speak up and explain why?
I think some people use downvotes as a disagree button. They don’t like the idea of paying a sub for a launcher (I too find it stupid but that’s just my opinion) and use the downvote to let the world know instead of commenting or simply ignoring the post.
Don’t take it personally, and please don’t let the downvotes discourage you! Your posts are a breeze of fresh air content in a place where most content is just links to news sites.
It might be me, but I don’t use the downvote button as a disagree button. I reserve it for content that’s actually negative, such as spam, ai slop, insults/bigotry… If iI had to downvote every piece of content I don’t like/disagree with in lemmy, I’d pass most of my time here downvoting. You can just ignore what you disagree with.
I don’t like subscription based software, and a subscription based game launcher is even more ridiculous. Especially when there are already free open source alternatives.
With the subscription aspect in mind, this reads to me like an advertisement rather than news. Probably because you just pasted in their literal ad copy instead of giving us any of your own thoughts about it whatsoever.
A big part of why I’m on lemmy is to get away from the “natural engagement” ad posts, so in short this sort of post isn’t something I want to welcome or encourage.
Personally, this post would have come across a lot differently if it was just the link to their site/blog post and even a few sentences about your personal thoughts on it. This comes across as a poorly done ad.
You didn’t “just share news”. You just shared an ad with effectively no further context.
Thank you for sharing. I gave it an upvote because I do care about posts and it was informative.
I disagree with the product though and wouldn't get it because I don't want another subscription. I guess people are down voting because they disagree with the Junk Store 2.0 itself.
Anyhow. Please continue to post. It's important for growing these communities and try not to let the downvotes discourage you.
Junk Store 2.0 is a fully extensible game launcher designed to help you easily install and manage games from platforms like Epic, GOG, Amazon, and more — all without the hassle of complex workarounds. It’s faster, more stable, and includes a ton of new features to enhance your experience on the Steam Deck.
It is the remake! It does look really good. I haven’t played the PS3 original but judging but Naughty Dog’s similar output for the time i wouldn’t at all be surprised if it look stellar too
omfg i fucking love TLOU, i completed it last month for the first time and it’s become one of my all time favourite video games, it’s a fucking masterpiece.
I just completed it today, and i’m planning to go back and complete left behind tomorrow. I’m also thinking about trying to 100% it since it’s not too much of a challenge and it’s got some unique criteria i’d love to try and do. I’m not ready to let this game go lol
This game took mediocre gameplay on rails, and through a great storyline and acting, created something outstanding. I wish I could play it for the first time again. The sequel doesn’t even come close, IMHO.
I’m a sucker for the Game play, but i can definitely see how it can be considered mediocre. You are right though, the story line and acting are really were the game shines
I’ve been playing The First Berserker: Khazan. I’m maybe two-thirds through the game and generally have a good time. It’s basically Nioh with the faster paced combat, loot and mission based level format. For the first two regions, I mainly used the Spear, but recently have switched to the Greatsword. The monster bosses are fine, but some of the human bosses can be extremely infuriating, with how their stamina regenerates so quickly.
Well if it hurts those companies enough, they’ll ignore that organization (the same that led to pornhub deleting 80% in 2020 and removing sex ed from American schools) that’s the reason for this bullshit in the first place.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne